Where the Heart Is
by Maidenstear
Summary: What most people didn't know was that when he was young, it wasn't that he couldn't talk—he just didn't need to.


Aneko: Hola hola hola my little chickadees. How have you been? Good? Marvelous!

Disclaimer: Nuuu, I don't own the Jak and Daxter franchise. If I did, there would probably have been more emotional angst to accompany all the butt-kicking.

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**Where the Heart Is**

When he was young, and still running around Sandover with Daxter and causing mischief, he didn't think about it much. Why would he? The easiest things to take for granted are the things you're used to having, like the knowledge that the sun rises in the morning, or that the stars come out at night. Who would imagine such constants in life changing from what they've always been?

What most people didn't know was that when he was young (before his body was polluted and his lungs pried open by pain), it wasn't that he _couldn't_ talk—he just didn't _need_ to. Life was simple and easy—the sand beneath his feet, the wind in his hair, the sun on his face. He listened and felt where most people talked.

"Someday, you could become a great sage, Jak," Samos used to say to him. The words never meant much—he was young, and they slid off like drops of water, lettering the future remain something formless and far off

All it is now is a memory, the remnants of a life that is long gone. Yet still, on nights that are too cold, dark and alone, he summons up the images of those times. They are less like memories now, and more like a blurring of bright colors, one fading into another with no lines in between. Whatever it is, he wrings every last drop of warmth he can from it. It is soothing, in a way that nothing else can be.

On some days he would give anything to be able to have that easiness of life again, to not hold a gun in his hands or feel the tenseness in his muscles from always (always_always_don'tdropyourguardyou'lldiedon'tdiecan'tdieLIVE) being on alert. But—he admits—he doesn't know how to anymore. The gun might as well have grafted to his hand, it has become such a reality.

But even the darkest realities can become normal. While he still wishes for what will never be, he slides into a settled place between leaning city walls, underground hideouts, and gray days. It's not joy. It's not even comfort, but for the warped body he now owns, it fits. For the snarling, ghostly white beast that hides in the corners of his mind, for the rest of him, burned hollow by revenge, it is perfect.

That was _all_ he was—until he found _her_ again.

The sum of everything that he once was could be found in one glance from her eyes, rushing into him like a tidal wave, the salt stinging wounds he didn't know he had. He wants to tear away from her as much as he wants to hold her in his arms and never let go. Her, with all the sameness of self she had preserved over the two years, while his had been ripped away and replaced with something twisted and grotesque.

And it's not her fault, he _knows_ that it's not her fault, but when he sees her he can't help the heat, the burning, swallowing raging. His brain knows it but his heart is hurting and happiness is almost too hard to bear. He has to figure out how to not run, how to keep his twitching limbs still as memories and feelings swill around him.

He could drown in it, and that scares him. Not the drowning, but losing his hatred in the current. If he loses that, he won't know what to do with himself. His is twisted, broken—but he _is_, and so the twisted parts and broken bits sink through his skin and slice into his heart.

He gets used to it. Even in all his malformation, there is a place for him, people who need him. They don't need him to be the white-eco boy hero. They need him, the dark eco freak who exists now. His abilities, his heart. Him. He has a place in an underground hideout, and it isn't a village on a beach with houses that slant. But with the help of a snarky voice in a small orange body, like wood, the roughest parts are sanded over. Just for a while, he imitates peace, and doesn't do so badly t it.

He does so well that he doesn't expect and doesn't understand when he is thrown out into the desert, like so much trash. Like he hasn't done anything for anyone at all. He tries not to mind, to keep imitating peace, but the desert folds in around him, and his heart fades in his chest. Thoughts he can't help thinking:

Maybe he'll die out here (_that wouldn't be so bad, would it?)_

Sun stealing the moisture in his skin, step by step (_If he dies, he doesn't have to keep trying.)_

Just one more step—keep going (_there would be no boy hero,)_

Daxter fainted a while back (_no dark beast,)_

He can't anymore—(_nothing)_

...

He wakes up by water (_not dead)_. At first he thinks that he is in a quiet, green village. That everything was a dream gone cold and dark.

But there is no green, and the man who speaks to him has a voice like sand scraping against rock. It really isn't comparable at all. A place that is as weather-beaten and constant as the rocky monoliths dotting the desert.

There is still a beach, though. Like one he used to know (It _is_ the same world, after all, a little voice tells him, it's just the _future_. He hates the voice). When he first sees it in front of him, he stops in his tracks, like he has been frozen. Suddenly, he is not twenty, jaded and bitter. He is fourteen, innocent and happy, teasing hermit crabs until they pop back into their shells, chasing seagulls from ruins, arms flapping, helping villagers with menial problems that convince them that he'll become someone _amazing—_

He shakes his head, turns away, and never looks at the beach again.

After years of darkness and bitterness, he doesn't have room. Room for simplicity. Room for mischief. Room for fun.

And after years of darkness and bitterness, he doesn't have room for white eco. Or at least, he thought so. He had even started to think that white eco just didn't exist anymore. The world was dark and lonely, and that was all it would ever be. He almost wants to hate them, to blame them for all that has happened, but he can't. Not because they awe him in any way, but because white eco is rushing in him and through him.

For just a second, he clings to his desperate anger, holds it in hands with fingers like claws—

Until (gently, _gently)_, it isripped from his hands, leaving him with an empty cleanness that makes him breathless.

The darkness is still there, but small, like it's been locked in a box and shoved into a corner.

He feels raw in a way that's hard to explain in words, and that he doesn't want to share anyways. He wants to savor this newness, nursing it in his chest until it blooms into something larger.

There really isn't time to stop and feel, but his worry is needless. The clearness of it coats his body like a second skin, cocooning him when the darkness wants to swallow him in one go.

Several times it nearly brings him—this hardened warrior—to tears, but he really can't help it. As white eco surrounds him, he closes his eyes and feels it. Inside him, the heart of a young boy hero still beats, underneath the years still stinging with hate and rage. When he closes his eyes, he feels almost like it could have been him and that maybe—(_hopefully_) someday will be again.

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Aneko: Am currently trying to become one of those mythical beasts called an "adult."

It's stupid.


End file.
